CairnGorm Mountain snowsports centre near Aviemore said it would be closed on Thursday because of the expected high winds.

Image copyrightMetOffice

Image caption
The Met Office amber warning covers the north of mainland Scotland and the Northern Isles

The Scottish government held a resilience meeting on Wednesday to discuss the impact of the storm.

Mr Yousaf said: “We are facing some challenging weather conditions in the next few days as a result of Storm Caroline and we will be working closely with our partners to try to mitigate the worst of these and get information out to the public so that they can plan their journeys.

“Disruption is very likely but we will make every effort to recover the network as quickly as possible when incidents do occur.”

He said strong winds were likely to result in restrictions and closures on road bridges on Thursday morning.

Gritter tracker

Mr Yousaf added: “Moving forward, snow and ice will become more of a feature of the storm and our gritters and patrols will be out across the network.

“There is plenty of salt available and new vehicles are being trialled to improve our response. Our gritter tracker is back online so that people can see where our gritters have been out in their area.”

Graeme Macfarlan, commercial director of CalMac, said disruption to ferry services on Thursday was “a high possibility”.

He said: “We would urge passengers who need to travel, to allow extra time for their journey and to keep track of the status of their sailing on the website before setting out on their journey.”